Jul 032026
Anime Expo has begun, and we started off with some new otome announcements from Aksys!
Like in past years, Aksys didn’t live stream their Anime Expo panel, so I watched social media to wait for the announcements to be shared.
Aksys had two new otome fandisc localizations to announce. First up was Illusion of Itehari -trail-. This fandisc came out last July in Japan, so that’s a pretty fast turnaround for localization.
Second was Olympia Soirée -Catharsis- (which might actually be a sequel, rather than a fandisc), which came out last December, so that’s an even faster turnaround. They must be confident that there’s an audience for these fandiscs.
Both are set to be released sometime next year.
Now, I’m a little surprised those were the only otome announcements. I know it’s a niche genre and we shouldn’t expect a ton of news, but I thought they would at least localize one all-new game as well, instead of only fandiscs. I was waiting to see what the new title would be when I saw people saying the panel was over.
I haven’t played either Illusion of Itehari or Olympia Soirée yet, so while that does give me some more motivation to finally get around to them, there’s nothing here that has me screaming with excitement like there has been some years.
In non-otome news, Aksys also announced Cthulhu Mythos ADV Lunatic Whispers & The Isle Of Ubohoth, a bundle of two tabletop RPG-inspired adventure games that sound interesting… although I checked out the Steam pages for the originals and saw that Isle Of Ubohoth has a note about using AI for the backgrounds. So I’ll probably skip this one after all.
Anyway, I guess I’ll get working on my otome backlog. What are your thoughts on Aksys’s announcements?